Conventionally, television games have been developed in a variety of ways, for example, as systems provided as home video game dedicated machines, coin-operated arcade game machines and the like, and in the form of game software which can be run by a general-purpose computer such as a personal computer. On the other hand, game programs provided through a communication network such as the Internet have become popular as distributed by the so-called online gaming services, which are taking the place of the conventional distribution through recording mediums such as CD-ROM.
For example, as one category of the games, there are sports simulation games such as a fishing game. In this sports simulation game, a player inputs several conditional parameters required for pulling up fish on the basis of the user operation. These conditional parameters are input through a GUI displayed in a screen with an input interface such as a controller of the game device, a mouse or the like.
Meanwhile, in the case of sports simulation games, a variety of GUIs have been developed and proposed. For example, the above various conditional parameters (data) such as input timings are changed in accordance with the skill of the player in order to make the game more exciting. Some controllers of game devices are provided with vibration functionality through which it is possible to give the user feeling or a sense of damage which the character to be controlled would experience in the virtual space of the game.
However, in the case of a terminal such as a personal computer which is not provided with the vibration functionality, there is visual implementation provided for representing the feeling the character would experience by the use of various indicators which are displayed in the screen. Particularly, for enhancing the entertainment of the simulation game such as a fishing game, it is important how to give the player the feeling that the character would experience, and how to express the reality of operation performed in response thereto.
For example, the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1 makes it possible for the player to perform click operation in response to which the character swings a fishing rod as casting motion in the screen, and adjust the casting distance (the length of a fishing line: line meter) while viewing a power gauge indicative of the force of casting. Then, when fish appears, an underwater window is opened in the game screen to display the fish together with a pointing button which is used to catch fish with a hook. This underwater window is designed to know the positional relationship between a bait and the fish, and the fish can be caught by pressing the pointing button at the moment that the fish bites the bait.
Next, the caught fish is pulled up. A tension gauge and a spinning button are displayed in the game screen. The fish (item) can be successfully landed and gotten when the winding button is operated to adjust the tension within a predetermined range of the tension gauge. As has been discussed above, in accordance with the GUI described in Patent Document 1, the game system can be set up such that fish goes away when the pointing timing fails or when the tension goes out of the predetermined range of the tension gauge during the winding operation.
However, there is a problem in that the relationship between the angler (character) and fish in the water is visually represented in the underwater window as the scene which can not be viewed in real fishing, and thereby the reality is compromised in fact. On the other hand, if no representation is provided of the relationship between the character and fish, there is a problem in that the feeling that the character would experience cannot be given to the player so that the game becomes less interesting.
Furthermore, since the game world is a virtual world, the scenario of game is completed as a scenario in the screen. Nevertheless, it is possible in an online game system to manage the result of game for each user, and provide continuing services in accordance with the result of game, and thereby a new business is expected with cooperation between a virtual game world and real services.
[PATENT DOCUMENT 1] Japanese Patent Published Application No. 2004-133815